Originally posted by Lenny Rat:

BTW, if you intend to only build a few main bases, such as I am, I’d recommend you start with a minimum area 10x10 square for the footprint of your main building. That is large enough to house your living space, all workbenches, a kiln/smelter, and 5 or 6 portals. Leave some additional space outside for some crops and hives. Then dig your moat.

Re-digging and filling in moats as you grow is no fun!

Thanks for the reply Lenny. Why do you feel the smelter and charcoal furnace should be inside? Mine are outside now and I have no difficulties I see except the dwarfs and greylings beat on them at times.

Originally posted by GeoForce:

Relatively new to the game and still haven't killed The Elder, but just wondering when (and possibly where) I should start building a more permanent and more defense able base. I'm current working out of a pair of resurrected and a bit upgraded existing structures with no defenses at all.

Also, still haven't found a site totally to my liking though some come close.

Eh.. sadly, you don't really have to. You can kill stuff without it being much of a threat to you, or your base.

Originally posted by SiEgE:

Eh.. sadly, you don't really have to. You can kill stuff without it being much of a threat to you, or your base.

This is true until after you've beaten the third boss. You MUST put a roof over your livestock before you defeat the third boss or they'll be sniped from the air like my two star boar were. Now I only have 1 star boar :(

P.S. You can move livestock from a pen to a barn by building a fenced in path between the two and scaring them along it with a torch.

There are a lot of factors that I consider when choosing a base location.

I like to maintain a portal by the shrine to be able to change boss powers. So my starter base stays close to that.

Next I scout around to find a Black Forest location near a good size swamp with a few copper nodes close together near the shore. This lets you develop bronze in an area while setting up your iron production when you get that far.

Other things I look for are decent sized mountains and plains. If there is a small plains strip around the black forest and swamp that is ideal to me.

For silver I look for a good area in the black forest near the shore and on top of a copper node. Mountain needs to have stone golems or there won't be silver there. So you can scout areas out for silver even without the wishbone.

Copper tends to be a pain so I like to put bases on or near nodes of them to make forges etc. Shore in black forest is important for Tin.

One other factor is rare items like the Maypole. Only found one in a few seeds but I use it for the extra comfort and ended up putting my portal hub around it with a generic farm for carrots and turnips.

So I end up looking for combinations of biomes that are populated with resources I will need. This may take extra time to scout the map but I take a lot less time moving around ore by boat etc.

I would wait until you have iron in hand. Then you can build pretty much anything that can be built. If you rush off to build now, you can't make any stone or use the iron support beams and there are other missing items as well like the hearth.

I wait until after killing Elder, to make my "Main" base, and that's because his altar is the spot i use to build it... by digging out the entire space underneath it.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434837584

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434843149

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434836833

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434836874

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2432979955

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434836940

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2432979999

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2434836744

As you may (or may not) notice from these pics, is that: I have only 1 portal in this base, and that's because I built a portal "hub" AT the starting area where the trophies are hung.

I did this because that location is somewhere that needs to be visited numerous times to hang trophies, as well as change powers, AND I didn't want to clutter my main space with a dozen portals... Any time i want to travel to one of my outposts, i simply step through the portal, at my base, which puts me in the hub and from there have all destinations available.

If you can see my minimap, this particular Elder altar is located very near the ocean, which allowed me to set up a docks very close to home, yet just far enough away that it doesn't get raided during regular random raid events. While the altar is close to the ocean, it is also up on a hill, so when I dug out under the altar i was able to dig down maximum dig allowance without hitting water table.

You may also notice some white dots on my minimap and those are copper nodes... Literally have copper right outside my base... can't get much more convenient than that.

The Altar is completely 100% indestructible, and so far, in roughly 450 hours of play, have never had any enemy even come close to reaching the interior of the base, but i must point out that anytime a raid starts happening I go outside to confront the mobs, rather than stay hidden underground.

NO additional walls, moats, spikes or any other form of "defenses" needed... It's completely safe and raid-proof.

As mentioned I have a portal hub located at the start area, so each time i set up a satelite outpost, I place a portal connecting it to that portal hub.
I place new portals any time i reach a new biome or continent or any other important location I may want to go back to.

Each satelite outpost contains a small building which houses smelting facilities and comfort items/bed as well as a bit of storage.... This eliminates long trips trying to transport metals long distances and allows me to simply process any local metals at the appropriate biome.

In swamps I build high up in the indestructible trees, and if you do it right, you can place fires and smelter / coal kiln up in the tree as well so everything is way up out of reach of the poisonous critters below.

Early /mid game, I set up a separate garden area in meadows, to keep my beehives and to grow carrots and turnips, and also happened to place this at an area where an abandoned village has 15 berry bushes that respawn over time. I did this to keep my main base area clear of anything that could get destroyed or attract unwanted attention... Whenever i need foods i just port over to the garden and collect.

For late-game gardening, I set up a fairly elaborate plains biome outpost which sits straddling plains and meadows so I can grow turnips and carrots but also barley and flax, and set up all the necessary processing stations for all the plains resources. The plains outpost is situated right next to the ocean and, with this outpost had to actually surround it with palisades and spikes to keep the bad guys out.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy building and like the look of various "above-ground" structures (here's an example of one of my early buildings)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2425977828

Overall I no longer wanted to be bothered setting up all sorts of trenches/ walls / spikes at my main base and have to constantly be repairing them, so my favorite "go-to" is the indestructible, underground, Elder Altar base.

Try growing the base alongside you. Make fortifications and better structures as you are able. If you cant find a place you like. Then just make the place you are already in the way you want it. Change the terrain, plant some trees or cut them down. Really just make what you want of the area.

Depends on your playstyle.

Lots of bases: If you like having strongholds all over the map, then you'll want to make a new base pretty much every time you discover a new type of metal. You'll want a meadows/black forest base for your bronze age, a swamp base for your iron age, a mountain castle for silver, a plains fortress, etc.

A couple of bases: Your main build times are when you enter the bronze age and when you enter the end game. It might be tempting to create a castle in the swamp or the mountains once you reach those biomes, but hold off and build a big castle in the plains for endgame. Some crops you need late game can only be made in the plains, so this is really the time to take everything you've learned from building and improving your meadows estate and make a biiiiig castle in the plains for your barley and flax processing, as well as your black-metal smelting.

Well I didn´t beat the Elder yet too, I take my Time with that. I have a Base on the coast of the Ocean, with a little crappy Dock for my Crappy Boat. My only defense is A Moat around the base because Mobs are a little to Stoopid to cross it. works pretty well I guess. At least that´s how I did it...

It all depends on you and your preferred play style.

For example, I liked to have a large base from the beginning so that gray dwarves and skeletons did not bother me. There I had a portal hub which led me to forests because I didn't want to deforest my surroundings, to metals, ect.
There I always had tiny outposts where I could renew my comfort buff and repair tools.

As has been said, depends on your playstyle. Made my first main base before Elder. Afterwards I made a new and better one on a small remote island that's completely immune to raids. Stone building will unlock after Elder and you get some iron from the swamp, along with iron reinforced poles.
I now have 3 fortified based (meadows coast, island, plains coast) plus several smaller outpost for portal travel and access to certain biomes and resources.

Thanks all.

Currently I'm making workstations in virtually every (not too decrepit ) abandoned cabin or ruin I find, and am 'daisy-chaining; a row of portals as I spread. I've been told that I'll get a real boost when I find the trader, but hasn't happened yet either. I have located The Elder location but can't seem to figure how to sail to get there yet and it's close but past reasonable swim range.

Originally posted by GeoForce:

Thanks all.

Currently I'm making workstations in virtually every (not too decrepit ) abandoned cabin or ruin I find, and am 'daisy-chaining; a row of portals as I spread. I've been told that I'll get a real boost when I find the trader, but hasn't happened yet either. I have located The Elder location but can't seem to figure how to sail to get there yet and it's close but past reasonable swim range.

This is a solid approach. Your first real base needs to give you access to the Ocean biome, so building it along a shore or inlet is good. Moats are key to defenses and you only need to dig 3 sides on the water. You will likely need to run metals by foot for a while until you can build at least the Karve. So build it in the meadows but not too far from Black Forest. If you have not found a location that supports that, continue exploring until you do.

I almost made a huge mistake on my first base. I found a fantastic shoreline spot off a clearing in the meadows and build it there; not far at all from the original spawn point. Only after I spent time exploring all the areas around it did I realize that the “Ocean” was actually a lake! Fortunately, I found a very thin strip of land between it and the Ocean proper and was able to excavate a small channel to sail my ship through

Disaster averted. It is a great base now and has grown a lot.

BTW, if you intend to only build a few main bases, such as I am, I’d recommend you start with a minimum area 10x10 square for the footprint of your main building. That is large enough to house your living space, all workbenches, a kiln/smelter, and 5 or 6 portals. Leave some additional space outside for some crops and hives. Then dig your moat.

Re-digging and filling in moats as you grow is no fun!

I'm planning on building my main base on the plains, mainly as it's a nice open space to build on. Everywhere else is just very awkward to find a place and you need to be able to master building your base around what is already there.